Back in the day, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles. I find the series can be a hard sell to people who didn't grow up in that era though. Sonic 1 is a classic too, but doesn't hold up as well as the others, imo.

Streets of Rage is another solid trilogy. I think it peaked at SoR2, but the other games are fun too.

If you're just looking to play games and not buy them, Crusader of Centy is a lot of fun. A bit of a unique Zelda-like game where instead of new items, you get new animal followers!

The Shining Force duology is great, too. It was probably one of the first SRPGs to be released in North America!

And obligatory name drop for Star Control. The sequel is so much more fleshed out, but this one is a tactical strategy game where you have space ship fights when you encounter the enemy. There are two sides, each with ~7 unique and distinct ships!

Other than those...check out Sega Lord X on YouTube! He always talks about Shinobi, the arcade ports, and other awesome Sega games!

Comix Zone is cool but is also ball-bustingly difficult. Vectorman is another console exclusive that I thought was a pretty good entry on the system beyond the usual Sonic and sports games everyone is going to mention.

Gunstar Heroes is also another banger but due to its popularity it commands asinine prices on the used market so maybe just emulate that one.

On that note, I certainly won't fault anybody who wants to get some flavor of piracy cartridge, e.g. the Everdrive or some derivative thereof, to feed their retro console given the current insane collector's prices for many titles these days.

The Genesis is such a great console. I love how it really tried to bring the arcade home. Street Fighter 2, Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Strider, Air Buster, Out Run and come to mind.

Shining Force II was the first RPG I ever played, back in the days when you could rent the entire console. I absolutely fell in love with that game.

In addition to many listed elsewhere...

Beyond Oasis. Castlevania: Bloodlines. Rocket Knight Adventures. Shadowrun. Phantasy Star series. Castle of Illusion and World of Illusion. Might and Magic II.

And the Genesis version of Earthworm Jim remains the definitive version for me.

So many great games. Some of my favourites (mostly action RPGs, exclusives marked *):

• Landstalker*
• The Story of Thor*
• Wonderboy in Monster World (* virtually an exclusive)
• Soleil*
• Flashback
• The Immortal
• Quackshot*
• Light Crusader*
• Arcus Odyssey
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2* (the other main games are good too, but this is my favourite)
• Desert Strike and Jungle Strike (I don't remember playing Urban Strike, but it got excellent reviews)
• The Lost Vikings
• Sword of Vermillion*

Make sure you try to get both Toejam & Earl games, although diehards will swear the 1st one is better than the 2nd one. I also recommend the Batman & Robin side scrolling beat em up, not only was it fun but it had a banger soundtrack.

I'm not certain if you got the version compatible with the Sega CD but if you can locate one there were several ports of Genesis games to it. Eternal Champions was better on it because it had actual CGI and better animations, the Batman game was baller and, of course, there was Sonic CD as well.

I wasn't a huge fan of the system but Ecco the Dolphin, Golden Axe, and Eternal Champions were dope.

• Lost Vikings is a puzzle platfromer with three characters made by pre-Blizzard guys. It's just awesome all around.

• Comix Zone is a stylish, visually stunning adventure of an artist trapped in his own comic by the evil guy. I'm still impressed how cool it looks.

• Zero Tolerance is probably not that fun, but it's Genesis' sole popular FPS game pushing console's limits. It'd be interesting to look at it in restrospection.

Can I piggyback on this post? What are some good RPGs for the megadrive/genesis? I like to live translate games as I stream them and I'm looking for some text-heavy games, but it seems like the Super Famicom/SNES had a near-monopoly on RPGs.

General Chaos was one of my favorite multiplayer games of the era.

The Road Rash games were also great.

I really like haunting starring polterguy

Oddball games I picked up over the years.

Jurassic Park - follows the novel which has some fun set pieces. Difficult

Toy Story - TT game, and a fun “doom” level

Zero Tolerance- FPS for genesis

Scooby Doo Mystery- unless the snes game it’s actually a point and click adventure. Very fun

What are some of your favorite games?

Altered Beast, Mortal Kombat (ABACABB for blood, DULLARD for cheat menu), Sonic, Dune Battle for Arrakis (this became Command & Conquer), Beavis and Butt-Head

this Phaser? https://segaretro.org/Light_Phaser

Random pick but I always liked Cosmic Spacehead as a kid. It’s kind of a mix of a point and click adventure and platformer, quite unique and charming.

These are my recommendations:

• Sonic 1 to 3 (& Knuckles)
• Quackshot starring Donald Duck
• Zero Wing
• Ecco: Tides of Time
• Alien Storm
• Zool
• Shadow Dancer: Secret of Shinobi
• World of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck
• Atomic Runner
• Daffy Duck in Hollywood
• Aladdin
• The Incredible Hulk
• Dick Tracy
• Virtua Racing
• Super Smash TV

The Phaser only works on a CRT, I thought it was (primarily?) a Master System peripheral.

Check Starflight. It does exploration and resource gathering very well.

I wish I had a CRT for the one I got back in 2020. Genesis/mega drive, in my opinion, is such a cool system... at least the first model design. Love the ability to plug in a pair of headphones and play games without bothering anybody in the middle of the night.

As for games, I'm pretty basic because absolutely I love 4 out of the 5 Sonic games I got on here: Sonic 1-3 and 3D Blast/3D: Flickies Island. Spinball is the frustrating one ( mostly due to me sucking at it and the controls not being as fluid as the original trio, IMO ). Though, not including those, my next favorite would be the only other title I have but haven't played much of: ToeJam & Earl.

As for phaser gun, no idea because I have no idea what games even use it, let alone how many. Could be cool to keep as a collectors thing, kind of like how I have some official controllers that don't really work and I can't use. Or it could bring in a little money if you don't want to go overboard on spending more just to get any other things you might need/want for the console. No idea how much that phaser could bring in, but even a percentage of what you bid being brought back into your pocket is money saved, as I see it.

Awesome. I've got my old one in my parents attic somewhere. Need to dig it up. Got my old chipped PS2 from them though.

Personal favorite: Sonic the Hedgehog.

Runners-up: Grind Stormer and NBA Jam.

Rocket Knight Adventures - A mascot action/platformer featuring an opossum knight with a jetpack. The artwork and soundtrack are gorgeous, and the rocket charge attacks feel awesome. The bosses are all extremely creative and often have multiple stages, including, an evil train, a water snake that you fight while jumping between the foreground and background, a giant crab, a gradius style spaceship battle, and an epic rock-em-sock-em robot battle in giant mechs.

Ranger-X - fantastic mecha side scrolling shooter where you can dock your mech with motorcycle or spaceship. Love that game.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Chemical Plant Zone is easily one of, if not, the best sonic level ever

X-Men - the music alone is fantastic

Phantasy Star II - one of the greatest RPGs ever.

Battletech - like jungle strike but with Mechwarrior

Dr. Robotniks Mean Bean Machine - awesome and addictive puzzle game

Jurassic Park - the graphics at the time were fairly game changing, especially the T-Rex

Skitchin - like Road Rash but on rollerblades

Mortal Kombat - IMHO, other than the Sega CD version, best home port of the game just remember to enter in the blood code

Super Monaco GP II - one of the best racing games of the 16bit era